MSU Billings student receives Goldwater scholarship
MSU Billings student receives Goldwater scholarship
A court first ordered Mooresville and its police department to return Jermaine Sanders’ $17,000 in November. He still doesn’t have it. Now, his wait could stretch on for months.
A former South Carolina police officer serving 20 years in prison for killing an unarmed Black man who was running away from a traffic stop said his lawyer never told him about a plea offer from prosecutors that could have cut years off his sentence. Ex-North Charleston police officer Michael Slager is asking for a new sentence in federal court this week, saying he would have taken the deal and his lawyer, one of South Carolina's most accomplished attorneys, was grossly incompetent for not telling him about it. Prosecutors said the mistake doesn't rise over the very high bar of tossing out Slager's sentence and added his defense was excellent in almost every other way.
The snake involved was an African bush viper. There is no known antivenom for their bites.
The nation is focused on voter-suppression bills advancing through state legislatures, but there is another wave of bills that are just as much of a threat to voting rights: blatant attempts to raise the penalty for protesting that could harm our ability to vote.
Russia's defense minister said Tuesday that the country's massive military buildup in the west was part of readiness drills amid what he described as threats from NATO. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the maneuvers in western Russia that have worried neighboring Ukraine and brought warnings from NATO would last for another two weeks. Speaking at a meeting with the top military brass, Shoigu said the ongoing exercise was a response to what he claimed were continuous efforts by the United States and its NATO allies to beef up their forces near Russia's borders.
Of the 6.8 million people who've received a Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, six people subsequently developed CVST blood clots.
The Duke of Cambridge will not be reunited with Prince Harry until the day of their grandfather’s funeral, when the Duchess of Cambridge is expected to act as peacemaker between the royal brothers. The siblings are understood to have spoken on the telephone since Harry landed in the UK on Sunday, and hope to finally see each other in the flesh on Saturday morning, ahead of the 3pm ceremony at Windsor Castle. It will be their first face-to-face meeting in more than a year and comes after Harry and Meghan gave an interview to US chat show host Oprah Winfrey suggesting an unnamed royal had queried Archie’s skin tone as well as describing William as “trapped” in the monarchy. Sources close to both couples insist that they will be putting their differences aside for the sake of the Queen as the family gathers at St George’s Chapel to remember the Duke of Edinburgh, who died on Friday, aged 99.
The recent sabotage at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility is just the latest setback for the country's Revolutionary Guard, though the paramilitary force is rarely publicly criticized due to its power. Its forces failed to stop both an earlier attack at Iran's Natanz facility and the assassination of a top scientist who started a military nuclear program decades earlier. Then on Sunday, the nuclear facility, of which the Guard is the chief protector, experienced a blackout that damaged some of its centrifuges.
ALEXEY NIKOLSKYAll-out cyberwarfare, nation-wide forced blackouts, and the targeted disruption of internet services—for one of the Kremlin’s top propagandists, all of those tactics are fair game in what she describes as a fated war-to-come against the U.S.“War [with the U.S.] is inevitable,” declared Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of the state-funded Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik, who believes the conflict will break out when, not if, Vladimir Putin moves to seize more territory from Ukraine.As Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s doorstep mounts, Kremlin loyalists have been urging for even more overt aggression and bloodshed in the campaign to annex Ukraine’s Donbas region. The only thing standing in the way, they say, is U.S. support for their beleaguered neighbor.NATO issued a statement on Wednesday demanding an end to Russia’s troop movements on the border with the disputed territory of Donbas in eastern Ukraine. It is the largest buildup of Russian troops since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The U.S. underlined the statement this week by deploying two warships to the Black Sea.On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov threatened retaliation. “We warn the United States that it will be better for them to stay far away from Crimea and our Black Sea coast. It will be for their own good,” he said.The escalation was foreshadowed on state television’s Sunday Evening With Vladimir Soloviev over the weekend. Simonyan explained that it was time for Russia to gear up for a showdown against the U.S., and prophesized a kind of war driven by hacking, the forced disruption of internet access, the shutting down of power supplies, and an all-out offensive on U.S. infrastructure.“I do not believe that this will be a large-scale hot war, like World War II, and I do not believe that there will be a long Cold War. It will be a war of the third type: the cyberwar,” said Simonyan.She warned that—in this theoretical battle—the U.S. would plot to cut off the electricity of entire Russian cities. In turn, she speculated, Moscow would be able to force a blackout in Florida or New York’s Harlem at the flip of a switch.“In conventional war, we could defeat Ukraine in two days,” Simonyan said, “but it will be another kind of war. We’ll do it, and then [the U.S.] will respond by turning off power to [the Russian city] Voronezh,” she said.The top RT editor asserted that “[Russia] needs to be ready for this war, which is unavoidable, and of course it will start in Ukraine,” arguing that the Kremlin is “invincible where conventional war is concerned, but forget about conventional war... it will be a war of infrastructures, and here we have many vulnerabilities.”Her solution consists of Stalin-type measures to eliminate “vulnerabilities” in the run-up to another escalation, emphasizing the need for a hack-proof, government-controlled internet. “We still don’t have a sovereign internet, but God willing, we will,” she said.She wholeheartedly endorsed a suggestion from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, who argued that all of Russia’s opposition must be eliminated by May 1, 2021. With imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny on a hunger strike—and suffering from severe health ailments after being denied appropriate medical treatment—the Kremlin seems to be firmly set on that course.Simonyan argued that once Russia minimizes its vulnerabilities and renders Putin’s opposition powerless—which she argued could happen in a matter of months—the Kremlin will finally be ready to annex Ukraine’s eastern region.“I’ve been agitating and even demanding that we take Donbas. We need to patch up our vulnerabilities as fast as we can, and then we can do whatever we want,” she boldly proclaimed. The host, Vladimir Soloviev, wholeheartedly agreed: “We only lose if we do nothing.” He argued that by absorbing parts of Ukraine—or the entire country—Russia would be able to remove the zone of American influence further away from its borders.As one of the Kremlin’s most valued propagandists, Margarita Simonyan is notoriously close to the Russian president and has received multiple awards directly from Putin. After accepting one such award in 2019, Simonyan thanked Putin “for the most important reward in life… this honor to serve one’s Motherland.”Her “service” has involved RT and Sputnik-driven disinformation operations aimed at influencing the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which she often boasts about by pointing to the inclusion of her name in various U.S. intelligence reports.Russia’s recent cyberspace activities seem to serve as good practice for the “inevitable war” foreshadowed by Simonyan.Last year, six Russian intelligence officers were criminally charged by the U.S. for using the world’s most destructive malware to force blackouts in Ukraine and damage the critical infrastructure of multiple countries, which caused nearly $1 billion in losses. On Monday, hackers operating from Russia targeted France’s homeschooling platform.The Kremlin is prepared to intensify its offensive against the West, but fears of the retaliation that would follow. The idea of a bulletproof “sovereign internet”—completely under government control within Russian borders—is already on the books, with Moscow having introduced the idea as a preventative measure against retaliatory hacking attempts from other nations.Simonyan argued that Russia will surely be able to exploit the U.S.’s “catastrophic” educational standards, and referred to American military analysts and specialists as incompetent and stupid. She heartily laughed about news that more than 200,000 U.S. service members experienced hearing loss due to defective earplugs.“We can never come to any agreements with [Americans],” Simonyan said, arguing that instead, Russia can just as easily defeat the U.S. in a cyberspace war.She added, mockingly: “We don’t even need the nukes.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Three weeks after getting stuck, the Ever Given is still anchored in the Great Bitter Lake at the Suez Canal.
Bitcoin priced at infinity seems to indicate that the show's creators are either very bullish on digital assets, or believe the system will crumble.
Christopher Furlong - WPA Pool/Getty ImagesPrince Philip was often said to have vowed never to be in the same room as Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of his son Andrew, after photographs appeared in a newspaper in 1992 of Sarah topless and having her toes sucked by a lover in the South of France.Gyles Brandreth, Philip’s official biographer whose book The Final Portrait will be published later this month, has confirmed that long-standing rumor today in the second lengthy excerpt from his book.Even as a Corpse, Prince Philip Has to Take Second Place to the QueenPhilip, he said, declared “enough was enough” after the pictures appeared. He told Brandreth Fergie was “simply beyond the pale,” and resolved not to have anything more to do with her.At the time when the pictures were first published, Sarah was staying at the queen’s Scottish country estate of Balmoral. Philip put his resolution into immediate action, as Ferguson herself recalled to Brandreth, saying: “It was ridiculous. As soon as I came in through one door, he’d be falling over the corgis to get out of the other. It was very funny. Except, of course, it wasn’t.”Although the queen continued to receive Fergie even after her separation and subsequent divorce from Prince Andrew, Philip made it clear that he had no desire to ever see her again.Sarah plaintively told Brandreth: “Of course I want to see him. I am the mother of his granddaughters, after all.”Brandreth said when he raised this with Prince Philip, he just shrugged and said: “But the children come and stay,” adding, “I am not vindictive, but I don’t see the point.”He described Andrew and Sarah’s post-divorce arrangements which have seen them continue to share a home as “truly bizarre,” adding, “I don’t pretend to understand it.”Brandreth writes that Fergie and Philip held diametrically opposed views on “bottling up your feelings” which she believed was positively harmful.Brandreth writes that when her daughters were children she would tell them to stand in the middle of the extensive grounds of their home, Sunninghill Park, and scream.Brandreth wrote that Sarah then demonstrated, catching him by surprise as she let out a blood-curdling scream.He writes: “The prospect of encountering his former daughter-in-law screaming in the middle of Sunninghill Park could have been one of the reasons the Duke of Edinburgh decided to give her a wide berth after her separation from Prince Andrew. He regarded reticence as a virtue and self-control as a quality to be admired.”Philip did not sit down for the 2011 six-parter on the Oprah Winfrey Network Finding Sarah, in which Fergie wept on screen with a TV psychiatrist. He told Brandreth he was in favour of “self-awareness” but against “the endless introspection that seems to be so prevalent these days.” As reported on Monday, he regarded Harry and Meghan’s decision to do a similar interview as “madness.”Fergie, Brandreth reports, tried to repair relations with Philip but was constantly rebuffed.For Philip’s 80th birthday, she sent him “a handsome dinner service.” But even here, fate conspired against her, Brandreth writes: “It was supposed to have 12 settings, but it arrived with 13: the ‘sample’ had been included with the set. With Sarah, somehow, something always goes wrong.”Philip’s allegedly vow to never be in the same room as Fergie was broken only when they both attended the wedding of Prince Harry at Windsor Castle in May 2018.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
The Daily Beast/Public DomainNearly 25 years after Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart vanished following a frat party, a California man previously named as a primary suspect in her disappearance has reportedly been taken into custody. Paul Flores, who walked Smart home and was the last person to see her alive in 1996, was arrested on Tuesday in San Pedro, California, according to KSBY News. Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, was also reportedly taken into custody in connection with the case, and authorities are serving another search warrant at Ruben’s Arroyo Grande home.The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office is expected to announce the arrests on Tuesday afternoon.The reported arrest comes just one month after the sheriff’s office identified Flores as “the prime suspect” in Smart’s case, which has attracted national attention for decades. Is Kristin Smart Buried in This Backyard? Neighbors and a Wonder Dog Say YesFour Women Say the Man Suspected of Murdering a College Student Sexually Assaulted ThemThe Smart family always believed they’d identified Flores, a fellow college student, as Kristin’s alleged killer. The Smarts even filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Flores, alleging he “preyed upon” and “murdered” Kristin, who was in an “intoxicated state” when he found her. The civil case, however, remained stalled because of the ongoing criminal probe.Smart was 19 and a freshman at California Polytechnic State University’s San Luis Obispo campus when she vanished on Memorial Day weekend in 1996. The coed had attended an off-campus frat party and was later found passed out drunk on a neighbor’s lawn at 2:30 a.m., according to an FBI agent’s private investigation and 2000 report.While a few students stepped in to wake Kristin up, it was Flores who walked her home—and who became the last person to see her alive. As The Daily Beast reported, Flores, who also attended Cal Poly, later told cops Kristin was “walking real slow” and that he hugged her waist to keep her warm on the chilly stroll back to her Muir Hall dorm. Flores told authorities that he returned to his room in Santa Lucia Hall after dropping her off.Yet, one month later, cadaver dogs led police to Flores’ mattress, which was on the left side of his dorm room. The dogs alerted again in the same area, even after the mattress was collected as evidence and removed from the building.Derrick Tse, Flores’ roommate at the time, told police Flores admitted to killing Kristin. “Yes, I killed her and brought her to my mom’s and she is still there,” Flores allegedly said, according to Tse’s statement to cops.Flores had cuts on his knees and a black eye when prosecutors interviewed him. He claimed he got the shiner during a basketball game on the day after Kristin vanished, but his friends told authorities that he already had the injury when he showed up to play. In another interview, Flores admitted he lied about the black eye, saying he’d actually bumped his eye on his truck’s steering wheel while doing repairs.During depositions in the Smart family’s lawsuit, Flores pleaded the fifth on all questions aside from his name and birth date. Meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies searched the Arroyo Grande homes of Flores’ parents, who were separated, but apparently came up empty-handed. A neighbor of Flores’ mother said he tipped police off to some strange activity he witnessed around the time Kristin disappeared. The neighbor said he watched Flores and another young man dig in Susan Flores’ backyard and pour concrete late at night. He claimed the men also hauled a rolled-up rug that appeared to carry something heavy.“I’ve never seen these guys before,” the tipster told The Daily Beast. “And they’re digging in this woman’s yard at this time of the day, and the kind of digging they were doing plus the concrete just didn’t make sense.”A second neighbor, Lauri Quinn, said she witnessed “ongoing construction work” in Susan Flores’ yard that included “newly constructed concrete planters cut into the existing cement in the backyard,” the FBI agent’s 2000 report stated.Susan’s backyard was also of interest to a world-famous cadaver dog named Buster, who discovered the remains of some 200 people, including World War II soldiers and others missing for decades, before he died in 2016In the summer of 2014, Buster alerted twice at Susan’s fenceline after moving through the backyard of her neighbor. “Trust me, there is human decomp (decomposition) in that soil,” Buster’s handler, retired police officer Paul Dostie, told The California Register, a now-defunct independent newspaper.In November 2016, The Daily Beast reported on the accusations of four women who say Paul Flores sexually assaulted them. One of the accusers alleges Flores and a friend drugged and raped her in 1994, when she was a sophomore in high school. A second woman, who attended Cal Poly, said Flores groped her at a Halloween dance party in 1995, and that he tried to rape her in the bathroom at her friend’s birthday party that same year. In response to The Daily Beast’s exclusive report, Kristin’s parents released a statement thanking the women for coming forward.“These new allegations against Paul Flores are very troubling and deserve to be thoroughly investigated,” they said. “We are grateful to these brave women for having the courage to talk about their experiences and we ask anyone who may have information they think could be helpful to contact the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office. “Any tidbit of information or recollection could make the difference in the recovery of our beloved Kristin.”In January 2020, Kristin’s mother told The Record, a daily newspaper in Stockton, that a retired FBI agent warned her to prepare for a big break in the 23-year cold case. “Be ready. This is really going to be something you don’t expect. We want to give you the support you need,” the agent reportedly told Denise Smart, Kristin’s mom. But the retired lawman didn’t say exactly when this bombshell would drop. Soon after Denise’s claim made national headlines, the Smart family backtracked, saying there was no impending announcement: “When the Sheriff’s Department completes the investigation, they will notify all of us when there is news to announce. Thank you for your understanding and our shared interest in the ongoing investigation.” The retired agent’s notice brought hope to Kristin’s parents, who over the years have dealt with a rollercoaster of emotions and what—until now—amounted to scant developments in the investigation, including a 2016 excavation by the sheriff’s department at the university. It’s unclear what was unearthed from that dig. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Alex Salmond has been accused of pandering to extreme Scottish nationalists after his new party released a campaign video which spoke of breaking "the spine of English superiority” and he claimed the support of a King who died nearly seven centuries ago. The former First Minister’s Alba Party on Monday broadcast a supposed endorsement from Robert the Bruce, who successfully led Scotland during the first War of Independence against England in the fourteenth century. In the clip, 'The Bruce', who actually died in 1329, predicts that Mr Salmond’s new rival party to the SNP would “unite the clans”. The bizarre video was in fact voiced by Angus Macfadyen, an actor who played the Scottish King in the 1995 blockbuster Braveheart, and is a supporter of Mr Salmond’s party.
Iran, which now plans to enrich uranium to 60% purity, has vowed revenge on Israel over Sunday's act of sabotage on the Natanz nuclear complex.
Protesters are trying to get a Georgia state representative fired by cities and counties that pay him to be their attorney, citing his role in pushing through a voting law that adds restrictions. The Washington City Council voted 4-2 to ask Rep. Barry Fleming to resign Monday, WJBF-TV reports. It's not clear if the city can immediately fire the Republican from Harlem because Washington has a contract with Fleming's law firm.
Samantha Massey was seven months pregnant on March 6 when she got a letter telling her that she and her husband and her five-year-old daughter, Rebel, were being evicted and would have to move their mobile home out of the North Fork park off I-64 by April 30 because it had been sold to Lexington developer Patrick Madden to build a shopping mall.
The Tropicana Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, a Sin City namesake, is being sold to a new entrant among Las Vegas Boulevard resort owners. Rhode Island-based Bally’s Corp. announced Tuesday it will acquire the iconic Strip property from Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. for about $308 million. The agreement for the nearly 1,500-room hotel, casino, theater and convention property also involves a sale-and-leaseback transaction relating to Bally’s Black Hawk, Colorado and Rock Island, Illinois, casino properties, the company said.
A student opened fire on officers responding to a report of a possible gunman at a Tennessee high school Monday, and police shot back and killed him, authorities said. The shooting wounded an officer and comes as the community reels from off-campus gun violence that has left three other students dead this year. Police found the student in a bathroom at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, a city about 180 miles (290 kilometers) east of Nashville, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David B. Rausch said at a news conference.
Mayim Bialik is a huge Marvel and DC fan. She told Insider about the "Spider-Man" role she once auditioned for that didn't pan out.